As bloggers we’re always looking for ways to make our content more friendly, encourage conversation and encouraging distribution of the content to amplify our voice. I recall seeing the Print Friendly plugin for the first time over at Waxing Unlyrical. I thought it was interesting but didn’t connect the dots until yesterday that is.

Why some of your readers will love this plugin

Think for a moment about your less tech savvy readers, the ones who may not even have a Twitter account or won’t bother to click the LinkedIn share because they rarely log in. Or think about the friends and connections of your tech savvy readers that won’t want content delivered anywhere but the old tried and true – Email. This is where the true power of Print Friendly lies. In this video I demonstrate how the plugin works and describe in more detail why I think it is great for the web 1.0/Email crowd.

While spot checking traffic on Google Maps today I went to refresh the map I’d created and it disappeared. I then realized that you need to create a link using the Google maps interface in order to be able to refresh the window correctly. It dawned on me that others are encountering a similar issue and might find a simple effective link easier to use. This video demonstrates that and will save you travel and searching time. I’ve found that often here in the Bay Area you can save a lot of time by waiting 15-20 minutes especially coming out of peak times. I also will use the custom traffic map to decide which way to go depending on where the worst traffic is at the time. Hopefully this will also save you time.

More from the idea farm… what else can you do with this?

For starters you can use your URL shortener like mine to create a really simple link that you can reference at any time from any device (where you have not already bookmarked the link) For example I turned this messy link:

Email it to your smart phone
By emailing this link to your smart phone such as my Motorola Droid, you will be prompted to open it using either a browser or Google Maps. By selecting Google maps you will be able to quickly and easily view the map on your phone without fumbling around. You could also create and send a link to a friend or loved one travelling to the airport, etc. I ran into a similar situation several weeks ago when my Podcast guest @dcfemella was running late in DC traffic. I was able to relay a little bit of information to her. Next time I find myself in that situation, I will mail them a link to their smart phone.

Do you have other ideas about how you could re-purpose this Traffic Map link?

I recorded this video to show people how to use the relatively simple tagging function on Facebook. I also explain more in depth in the video some of the etiquette involved with tagging people and pages. This is a great introduction to the feature if you are unsure how to use it or are looking for a starting point on etiquette.

What would you like to see?

Do you have any Facebook related topics that you’d like to see a video of? Please let me know and I will try to include it in this series.

It seems as though basic system information is often needed but not always easy to get. This video demonstrates how to use the BGinfo program by Sysinternals to display important information on the desktop background of your windows PC. The first couple of minutes show how to edit and use the program then a demonstration showing how to add it to a login script follows that for network admin types.

Here is a screenshot example of the output on one of our test machines:

Have an idea you’d like to see a video demonstration of? If it’s not already here, let us know via comments, contact form or Facebook and we’ll try to get it added to our library.

This video is a direct response to the top two search terms that brought people to my blog this past week. First of all thank you for coming. This video answers two questions that a number of people are asking:

How do you delete posts from MyAmpLog

hide my amplogs on amplify

Here is the video:

Any questions about Amplify (or anything else) feel free to ask in the comment section or on my Youtube Channel

In Joe's day job he helps manufacturers eliminate waste in their engineering, CNC programming and machining departments. He is currently 2018-2019 chair of the Sacramento Valley SME, an avid Maker and current Mechatronics student.